Is [5,0,0] -> [10,0,0] -> [30,30,0] -> [40,40,20] for hero progression not a relic?

[WookieFloyd]

Are you sure that you didn't calculated just the new TH10 laboratory research? I'm really sure that I didn't need that long for the laboratory to max out. Might be alzheimer's though.

Assuming your numbers are correct, you still have to count in, that the DE income at th9 isn't that huge. Also technically this also means that the heroes are sleeping the most at TH9. Caluculating the ratio (1hero/1lab) reveals that th9 still is a spike. And I'm questioning if the spike is still at the right place with TH9.

For quick reference:
thX -> hero time/lab time
th7 -> 0.08
th8 - > 0.12
th9 - > 1.36
th10 -> 0.40

That's more than thrice of what it is at TH10 and ten times of what it took at TH8. It doesn't need to be linear or steadily rising, but the spike is huge imo and while the other numbers look good, it played out worse for me at least.


You are totally right. There are still 2 issues.
1) Psychology: If you have the option to do something, people want do it. I guess many people burn out on the way to maxing the their TH9 heroes. I remember back then becoming a fresh TH9 I felt really intimidated which the huge quest in front of me. If you aren't that dedicated as a player, we can only assume that it's too much at once for quite a few to keep playing.
Longterm players need motivation and there is no better way to crush it but with intimidation.

2) Inter TH level strength: Guess why so many people go perma TH9 and not TH8 or TH10. The difference between a maxed TH9 and someone who is "just going through" is the biggest one.

I disagree with you that the DE profits at th9 aren't as good as th10. I think the DE is much easier to get at th9, no infernos makes a huge difference. Sure can th10 bases offer more DE on a raid given the extra drill, yes, but that doesn't mean you are always getting all the DE a base has to offer every time.

I agree that th9 is a spike and it does require more effort to max your heroes at th9 then th10, but the ability to upgrade both heroes at the same time is much easier at th9 then at th10. For example once i hit th9 I upgraded my aq straight to 20 without stopping and once she hit 10 i was upgrading both my bk and aq to 20 at the same time. At th10 since the amount of DE needed to start a hero upgrade is much larger it becomes far more difficult to upgrade both at the same time, especially since miner nerf, but it's still possible if you are a hardcore farmer.

In my opinion th10 is not the place for the hero grind to be at. The gameplay changes drastically from th8 to th9 and then again from th9 to th10. I believe that it is in the best interest of most players to spend as much time at th9 as possible to learn how the more advanced strategies function and work on learning the end game tactics that are needed to be successful at th10 and 11.

The biggest point I can make is heroes are what tend to make the difference between 2 and 3 stars on a lot of planned out attacks. You state that the challenge of upgrading heroes at th9 drives people away, but those people were going to quit either way if that drives them away, because the game once you hit th9 is just a long grind period. th10 has a big elixir grind needed to start out, then you have to grind out the highest hero levels and grind out walls. I would argue that if the hero grind at th9 doesn't get them to quit then the other grinds at th10 will. There is nothing saying you have to max heroes before going to the next th.

Plus lets be honest hero upgrades are probably where SC makes a majority of its money. Lots of people will gem hero upgrades, especially aq, since they don't like raiding without her. As much as people like to complain about SC being greedy or changing the game so that it promotes more gem buying, as players this is something that we want whether you buy gems or not. If SC doesn't make money then there is no COC game for us to play, plain and simple. Just based on this alone is why I think the hero grind should be at th9 and not th10, might as well get people spending money as soon as possible.

[Daddyhwhite33]

Let's look at it from the opposite (sorry I'm a math pleb, we do it that way):
Assume we wouldn't lower the levels but instead increase it to 40/40 on TH9.
Would it be good? Would it be bad? No Problems at all?
Basically you can still argue, that it would be your choice to go all way.
But there are reasons that this is not the case. There is a reason we are upgrading THs to go beyond limits.
Is 30/30 the sweet spot now? I dare say no and I doubt this would be the case, if SC didn't intend to give the formerly maxed TH9 something to grind, some content.

Now it's clear that sometimes doing nothing is the best decision. That's why I didn't wanna discuss about exact changes that need to be made anyway.

I'm sorry, but I didn't see where you proposed decreasing the hero cap at th9 (assuming this is what you mean by "opposite").

No, I don't think 40/40 heroes are appropriate for th9. Perma9s are probably the only players that would support that. Of course it would still be a matter of choice.

Still, I can't comment on whether or not I would agree to the aforementioned " smoothening " without at least a general idea (more likely specific details) of how it would take place.

The only thing I can really say for certain, is that. If I was a perma9 with 30/30 heroes, and they lost 5-10 levels all of a sudden. I would be out of my mind freaking mad. I would most likely quit right then and there. But as I said before, you haven't proposed that directly that I've seen. Although you did hint at it in the quoted response.

[WookieFloyd]

To be fair, I didn't think much about the walls, since I didn't experience the 1-2 level difference of walls not as much as a game changer as I see the heroes.
I don't remember exactly how far my progress (lab/heroes/walls) when I upped to th10 was, I know for sure, that my defenses were maxed out far too quick.


I didn't really think about it that way, but this would a nice way to both target the issue and not change the current hero level distribution at all.

To me it sounds like you didn't understand the need to prioritize DE raiding over everything else when you got to th9. This is the most common mistake I see of a lot of players. At th8 and below the only thing you really focus on is gold and elixir and upgrading troops and defenses. But at th9 your mentality needs to shift completely to focusing almost exclusively on DE while raiding. If you kept 2 builders busy from day one at th9 upgrading heros then you wouldn't have seen such a drastic difference in maxing heroes and defenses.

[WookieFloyd]

I think the biggest issue I see is most th9s have builder's and lab dead for th9 at th10 heros building's and walls are done and you still have 7-8 months lab time (the two are almost exact opposites). If they pushed some of those big 14 day troop ugs to th9 it would allow more people to max th9 without feeling as though they are wasting time in their lab waiting for their walls and hero's to finish at th9. Thus forcing them to rush to th10 with inadequate heros. Win/win....

This is because most players don't understand the need to focus so much attention to heroes once they hit th9. Before th9 heroes don't make much of an impact and all your focus goes to defenses and lab, but at th9 you really need to shift that focus to heroes, then lab, then defenses.

[WookieFloyd]

Let's look at it from the opposite (sorry I'm a math pleb, we do it that way):
Assume we wouldn't lower the levels but instead increase it to 40/40 on TH9.
Would it be good? Would it be bad? No Problems at all?
Basically you can still argue, that it would be your choice to go all way.
But there are reasons that this is not the case. There is a reason we are upgrading THs to go beyond limits.
Is 30/30 the sweet spot now? I dare say no and I doubt this would be the case, if SC didn't intend to give the formerly maxed TH9 something to grind, some content.

Now it's clear that sometimes doing nothing is the best decision. That's why I didn't wanna discuss about exact changes that need to be made anyway.

Your discussing sweet spot in relation to time spent upgrading heroes compared to defenses, but in reality sweet spot should be loked at in terms of offense vs defense and I think at this point most on here would agree that th9 is very well balanced in this regard. Just because you didn't understand the need to push heroes quickly up at the beginning of th9 doesn't mean that heroes can't finish at the same time as walls, lab, and defenses.

[Daddyhwhite33]

This is because most players don't understand the need to focus so much attention to heroes once they hit th9. Before th9 heroes don't make much of an impact and all your focus goes to defenses and lab, but at th9 you really need to shift that focus to heroes, then lab, then defenses.

I completely agree with this. On my th9 minis, DE/heroes has been priority #1 from day #1 at th9.

This shift in focus should be made into one the loading screen messages.

[WookieFloyd]

I Don't agree that hero progression feels wrong. Based on my numbers

th7 - 75k DE and 5 days ( 57 days to max lab)
th8 - 152.5k DE and 17.5 days (148 days to max lab)
th9 - 4287.5k DE and 296 days (217 days to max lab)
th10 - 3450k DE and 140 days (351 days to max lab)

These day totals are based on heros upgrading one at a time.

Based on the number of days to max lab upgrades compared to maxing heroes at a particular th level I can say that these numbers seem pretty reasonable to me. Sure th10 doesn't require as much time or DE to max heroes for that th level but look at how much more lab upgrade time is needed, then if you throw additional hero levels at th10 on top of the lab upgrades it becomes the same thing that you currently feel th9 is now. I think the hero and wall grind are in a good spot being at th9 as this is the spot where people have to learn how to play the game at a higher level or quit, so it only makes sense to try to get people to stay at this th level as long as you can. Staying at th9 and really learning how to use your heroes and the new style attacking and army comps required at th9+ is only going to set people up to succeed at th10 and 11. Also if you focus all your raiding efforts on de once you hit th9 it's not that hard to have heroes finish at the same time other upgrades do if you just prioritize things correctly.

Based on these numbers I posted earlier which i got from COC Wiki I would make this arguement:

If you upgrade both heroes at the same time straight to level 20 right out of the gates at th9 you can shave at least 70 days off of that 296 days bringing your hero upgrading time right in line with lab upgrading time. This is not that hard to do just using barch or gob knife in lower leagues, if you just make it a priority to farm DE. If you don't think that it's possible then I would recommend talking to SinofDusk because he can teach you a very effective way to accomplish this.

[CasualPleb]

Your discussing sweet spot in relation to time spent upgrading heroes compared to defenses, but in reality sweet spot should be loked at in terms of offense vs defense and I think at this point most on here would agree that th9 is very well balanced in this regard. Just because you didn't understand the need to push heroes quickly up at the beginning of th9 doesn't mean that heroes can't finish at the same time as walls, lab, and defenses.

I didn't even max my TH9, just saying.
I am just reminiscing here as a near finally near maxed TH10 on my road and on my experiences with players I've met so far.
And now it's not really about me, since I'm that noob who just ran away from the grind fest and my fail to not properly focus on heroes back then, it's about new players and players who aren't dedicated as much as you might be. Trust me, this huge spike in hero levels is initimidating for a lot of people.

You are right though on one thing, the overall balance on TH9 is perfect and while I didn't experience it myself I have a lot of friends and clan mates who did.
That doesn't mean though that it's good in most parts. There is still a huge difference in TH9s just due to the heroes. And to be fair, don't blame the players if they understand the need to push heroes quickly up "don't understand the need to push heroes quickly up" that's called game design and it the sheer amount of people who don't seem to understand shows that something is lacking.

[WookieFloyd]

I didn't even max my TH9, just saying.
I am just reminiscing here as a near finally near maxed TH10 on my road and on my experiences with players I've met so far.
And now it's not really about me, since I'm that noob who just ran away from the grind fest and my fail to not properly focus on heroes back then, it's about new players and players who aren't dedicated as much as you might be. Trust me, this huge spike in hero levels is initimidating for a lot of people.

You are right though on one thing, the overall balance on TH9 is perfect and while I didn't experience it myself I have a lot of friends and clan mates who did.
That doesn't mean though that it's good in most parts. There is still a huge difference in TH9s just due to the heroes. And to be fair, don't blame the players if they understand the need to push heroes quickly up "don't understand the need to push heroes quickly up" that's called game design and it the sheer amount of people who don't seem to understand shows that something is lacking.

Heroes are the most importnat part of this game if they were easy to accomplish maxing them then I would argue they shouldn't have as much of an impact on attacks as they do. If it was easy to max heroes then everyones bases would basically be the same. Heroes are what separate a lot of players. One of my favorite Sean Connery quotes from a movie: "Losers (or whiners) complain about doing their best, winners go home a f*** the prom queen." You can complain about it being intimidating or you can buckle down and tackle the task at hand in full force, IT's YOUR CHOICE, NOT SUPERCELLS.

If overall balance is perfect then changing hero levels would throw a lot of this out of whack.

It is not SC job to teach us how to understand and play every little aspect of this game. It is each players responsibility to decide the strategy they will use to go about upgrading their base. It's not SC fault if you fail to realize the importance of heroes and neglect them because you like them for raiding.

[Klavious]

This is because most players don't understand the need to focus so much attention to heroes once they hit th9. Before th9 heroes don't make much of an impact and all your focus goes to defenses and lab, but at th9 you really need to shift that focus to heroes, then lab, then defenses.

I discovered very quickly at TH7 that DE was going to be the limiting resource and it have been my focus ever since. It's going to be strange when my BK is done that only a few big ticket lab items are going require DE any more.

I look forward to the day when Golems, Valks and Bowlers comprise the bulk of my raid army.